High gas prices force RV owners to skip road trips

Until recently, Charles and Pat Meado of Quincy pulled their 28-foot camper to Colorado at least once year.

John Reynolds

Until recently, Charles and Pat Meado of Quincy pulled their 28-foot camper to Colorado at least once year.

This summer, they’re camping at Lincoln’s New Salem State Historic Site near Petersburg.

“The gas prices are horrible,” Pat Meado said this week as she sat outside her camper. “The higher prices hurt seniors and everybody else. We would be doing more camping if it wasn’t for the gas prices.”

Charles and Pat, ages 71 and 74, aren’t alone. As fuel prices have risen to $4 a gallon or more, many camper owners are taking fewer, shorter trips, and both recreational-vehicle dealers and campground operators are suffering the consequences.

Ron Sheley, a Taylorville resident who also was camping at New Salem this week, has seen the trend. He and his wife, Faye, traveled to Petersburg with another couple, Arney and Shirley Hilliard, also of Taylorville.

Last year, the two couples said, there were more people camping at New Salem, and the visitors came from farther away.

“There’s not as many people here as there were last year,” Ron Sheley said. “... Last year, there were a lot of people here from out of state. ... Everybody we have talked to, except that one person from Davenport, has been from Illinois.”

Factors such as size, terrain and driving habits come into play when determining how much it costs to operate a camper.

Large motor homes that resemble cross-country buses get 8 to 10 miles per gallon. Pull-behind campers sap power from the vehicles towing them. A full-sized pickup towing a camper can see its mileage drop to the very low teens.

A family camping at the KOA campgrounds near Lake Springfield, for instance, said they get 11 to 12 mpg while towing their 36-foot fifth-wheel with a heavy-duty Dodge pickup.

“Every 200 miles, we pull in and put in about $140 (worth of diesel),” said Russ Hill of Pearce, Ariz. “To go from Evanston, Wyoming, to here costs us about $1,100 in fuel.”

Steve Lott, owner of J&R Marble and Trailer Inc., sells campers off Illinois 29 near Athens. He said the higher gasoline prices have cut down on the number of people buying new campers. Instead, to save money, more are opting to fix up their existing campers and keep them longer than they normally might, he said.

“Our repair business has been real busy,” Lott said.

Stan Roller runs the KOA campground with his wife, Linda. He said rainy, cold weather was a problem this spring, and now, high fuel prices are eating into his business.

“April and May were really slow,” he said. “With the weather being nice now, we are still down about 10 percent, and we attribute that to higher gas prices.”

Since people specifically come to Springfield to see the Abraham Lincoln sites, Roller said he is better off than campgrounds that attract long-distance travelers who just need a place to stay overnight.

“Some KOA parks on the interstate are transitional parks where you just stay the night and continue your trip. They are down about 20 to 25 percent,” Stan Roller said.

For Ron Sheley and Arney Hilliard, the high fuel prices may have limited how far they’re willing to go, but they haven’t taken the enjoyment out of camping.

“We like getting away from the telephone,” Sheley said. “We like the peace and quiet. It’s so nice out here,”

While most people camp for fun, it’s a way of life for Hill, the Arizonan, and his family. Russ works for the railroad and drives from job to job. He travels with his wife, Amy, and their two daughters, ages 16 and 13, who are home-schooled.

Russ Hill said the family used to make reservations to ensure they’d have a place to park their camper. But reservations are no longer necessary at most parks, he said.

“We are seeing fewer people,” he said. “Not only that, when we’re traveling, we are seeing slower speeds — people are backing off the throttle (to get better mileage). I’m even going slower myself. Instead of running 79 mph, we try to run 64 mph to save fuel.”

Amy Hill noted that the family use to run into lots of people who were traveling long distances for recreational camping.

“Now, it’s more people who are working,” she said. “When the campgrounds fill up on the weekends, its local people.”

While they enjoy their nomadic lifestyle, the Hills said they don’t think they will be able to continue if fuel doesn’t come down.

“The high prices are killing us,” Russ said. “This will be our last year out on the road chasing the per diem on the traveling gangs. Because of the way the fuel prices are, the money is out of it.”

John Reynolds can be reached at (217) 788-1524 or john.reynolds@sj-r.com.

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